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UNOLS Establishes SCOAR to Promote
Research Aircra ft Facilities Ar U. S. Ocean Sciences
BY JOHN M. BANE, ROBERT BLUTH, CHARLES FLAGG, CARL A. FRIEHE,
HAFLIDI JONSSON, W. KENDALL MELVILLE, MIKE PRINCE, AND DANIEL RIEMER
The ocean sciences community is cur-
rently engaged in the process of de-
fining new facilities that will support
oceanographic research, education, and
monitoring efforts for the next several
decades. New research vessels, drilling
ships, coastal and deep-ocean observ-
ing systems, satellites, and submersibles
will be designed to increase ocean ac-
cess in terms of geographical coverage,
depth, temporal continuity, and resolu-
tion of events. Aircraft may be largely
overlooked facilities that are capable of
providing observations and data in ways
that satisfy many research goals, and
they should be considered an important
component in the future mix of oceano-
graphic facilities.
Aircraft are capable of greater speed,
and therefore greater range and spatial
coverage during a short time period
when compared to surface and sub-
surface ocean research platforms. Such
speed and range attributes lead to better
synoptic coverage of oceanic and atmo-
spheric variability. Aircraft-mounted
sensors provide data with much of the
appeal of the aerial view provided by
satellites, but with much greater speci-
ficity, spatial and temporal resolution,
and scheduling flexibility, and they can
provide resolution adaptable to phe-
nomena of interest. Aircraft are ideal for
both fast-response investigations and
routine, long-term measurements, and
they naturally combine atmospheric
measurements with oceanographic mea-
surements on similar temporal and spa-
tial scales. Aircraft surveys reach across
a wide range of environmental and geo-
graphic conditions. For example, an air-
craft can survey and collect remote-sens-
ing data over shallow estuaries, the coast-
line, and offshore with one deployment
and can do so in weather that might pre-
clude a surface vessel from covering the
same areas. Using smaller, less-expensive
aircraft for near-coastal work can result
in more coverage for certain types of data
at lower cost than using research vessels.
Aircraft have a particular advantage
for coastal observing that comes from
the combination of speed and range they
make available for remote measurements
and expendable instrument deployment.
The issue of aliasing in space and time
is especially significant in the coastal en-
vironment where scales of air-sea-land
interaction can vary too rapidly to be
adequately covered by any affordable
combination of ships, moorings, or au-
tonomous underwater vehicles. Satellite
remote sensing is valuable, but coverage
is sometimes limited by satellite orbit
parameters or by cloud cover, especially
in coastal marine layers. Using phased-
array technology, high-frequency radars
can provide excellent coverage of surface
currents (except very close to the coast)
and surface waves, but they offer very
limited subsurface measurements. Air-
borne remote and expendable measure-
ments of sea surface temperature, sub-
surface salinity and temperature, surface
waves and currents, ocean color, coastal
morphology, coastal bathymetry, and
important atmospheric and terrestrial
variables can significantly enhance data
176 Oceanography I Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004
SUMMARY
The search for the explanation of the
narrow currents that deflected Kon-Tiki
southward started in the summer of
2002 while one author (Legeckis) was
sitting at the edge of the ocean in Wild-
wood, New Jersey, casually reading about
Heyerdahl's Pacific adventures. A single
sentence relating mysterious currents to
changes in water temperature and the
corresponding roughness of the sea sur-
face was puzzling. It was assumed that
these changes were somehow related to
the TIWs. It is of interest to note that
finding the connection only became
possible due to the steady improvement
in the quality of satellite and in situ ob-
servations. In 2005, Olav Heyerdahl will
attempt to duplicate his grandfather's
voyage on a new raft. The eyes of many
satellites will follow his quest but the
currents, winds, and waves will still be
controlled by Mother Nature.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was supported by the NOAA
Ocean Remote Sensing (NORS) project.
The GOES SST products are available by
FTP at ftp.saa.noaa.gov from the NOAA
Satellite Active Archive. The authors
thank the SeaWiFS Project (Code 970.2)
and the Distributed Active Archive Cen-
ter (Code 902) at the Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland,
20771, for the production and distribu-
tion of these data, respectively. NASA's
Mission to Planet Earth Program spon-
sors these activities. The views, opinions,
and findings contained in this article are
those of the authors and not the official
U.S. Government or NOAA position. ma
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Oceancyraply I Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004 175
Aircraft are ideal for both fast-response investigations
and routine, long-term measurements, and they naturally
combine atmospheric measurements with oceanographic
measurements on similar temporal and spatial scales.
Oceancyraphy Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004 177
collected by fixed and mobile oceano-
graphic platforms in coastal regions. The
combination of satellite, aircraft, ship,
and moored measurements has proven
to be especially powerful in both coastal
and open-ocean regions.
In this article we give several examples
of how aircraft have been used recently
for collecting oceanographic and marine
atmospheric data, and how the Univer-
sity National Oceanographic Laboratory
System (UNOLS) is working through
its newly formed Scientific Commit-
tee for Oceanographic Aircraft Research
(SCOAR) to improve access to research
aircraft facilities for the ocean sciences.
RECENT RESULTS FROM
AIRBORNE OCEANOGRAPHY
The principal attributes that aircraft pro-
vide as oceanic research platforms are
speed, range, targetability, and an ability
to operate in a wide range of environ-
mental conditions. As an example of the
last, Figure 1 shows a view of the high
wind and sea-state conditions encoun-
tered by the Twin Otter aircraft operated
by the Center for Interdisciplinary Re-
motely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS)
on a flight over the Sea of Japan (East
Sea) during a study of winter storms.
Aircraft speed is often a key factor
in obtaining data in rapidly changing
conditions. Figure 2 shows results from
an aircraft survey of the coastal upwell-
ing system off Oregon during summer
2001. These data were gathered with a
small, twin-engine aircraft that was in-
strumented to measure several oceanic
and atmospheric variables with in situ,
remote, and expendable sensors. The
survey, covering 170 km x 80 km, was
completed in seven hours and produced
a reliable "snapshot" of the coastal envi-
ronment. Cool ocean surface tempera-
tures delineate the upwelling center off
Newport, Oregon, which typically gener-
ates a separated upwelling jet over Hece-
ta Bank, the relatively shallow region just
north of 44°N. Day-to-day changes in
wind forcing and the resultant oceanic
upwelling conditions make the aircraft
approach ideal for capturing synoptic
conditions on these scales.
In another example of how aircraft
have been used, the C-130 aircraft op-
erated by the National Science Foun-
dation's (NSF) National Center for At-
mospheric Research (NCAR) provided
measurements of the surface wave field
off Mexico (Figure 3). As in this case, the
wind-driven wave field in many coastal
regions is characterized by rapid tempo-
ral changes and very short spatial scales.
The wave field can be observed in a re-
alistic and believable manner with the
aircraft approach.
In a dual-aircraft operation, a Na-
tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin-
Figure 1. View from a port-side window of
the CIRPAS Twin Otter flying a measure-
ment mission at 100 feet above the Sea of
Japan (East Sea) during gale-force winds.
This program studied the modification of
the upper ocean and lower atmosphere due
to high wind stresses and strong ocean-to-
atmosphere heat fluxes during winter. The
aircraft allowed the ocean and atmosphere
to be measured simultaneously and quickly
during rapidly evolving weather, gathering
data that could not be obtained otherwise.
(Research supported by ONR.)
178 Oceanography I Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004
10
1000
500 —
-123.5
-124.5 Longitude (degrees)
-200 45.5
45
Dept
h/H
eigh
t (m
) Temperature ( C)
El I
Latitude (degrees) 43.5
Figure 2. View of the wind-driven coastal upwelling system off central Oregon. Oceanic temperatures, atmospheric equivalent potential temperatures and winds were obtained using an instrumented, light, twin-engine aircraft operated by the University of North Carolina. This survey, covering an area 170 km alongshore by 80 km cross-shore, was completed in 7 hours on July 24, 2001, and it gives a nearly synoptic, three-dimensional snapshot of the ocean and atmosphere. A strong atmospheric temperature in-version typical of this region in summer, can be seen around 500 to 700 m at about the height of the coastal mountains, and the southward winds are somewhat strengthened beneath the inversion. Recently upwelled water near the coast is apparent in the sea surface temperature pattern, with a cool upwelling jet separating from the coast and following the outer edge of the continental shelf adjacent to Heceta Bank, the shallow region immediately north of 44°N. (Research supported by NSF.)
istration (NOAA) P-3 and the NCAR
C-130 measured atmospheric and
oceanographic structure above and in
the equatorial warm pool and along the
95°W transect during the Eastern Pacific
Investigation of Climate. Oceanic cur-
rent, temperature, and salinity profiles
using AXCPs (air-deployed expendable
current profilers) and AXCTDs (air-
John M. Bane ([email protected]) is Professor,
Department of Marine Sciences, Univer-
sity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United
States of America. Robert Bluth is Director,
Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted
Aircraft Studies, Naval Postgraduate School,
Monterey, California, United States of
America. Charles Flagg is Professor, Marine
Science Research Center, Stony Brook
University, Stony Brook, New York, United
States of America. Carl A. Friehe is Profes-
sor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of California, Irvine, United States
of America. Haflidi Jonsson is Chief Scien-
tist, Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely
Piloted Aircraft Studies, Naval Postgraduate
School, Monterey, California, United States
of America. W. Kendall Melville is Profes-
sor, Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
University of California at San Diego, La
Jolla, California, United States of America.
Mike Prince is Executive Secretary, Univer-
sity National Oceanographic Laboratory
System, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories,
Moss Landing, California, United States
of America. Daniel Riemer is Assistant
Professor, Rosenstiel School of Marine and
Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami,
Florida, United States of America.
Oceanoyraphy 1 Vo1.17, No.4, Dec. 2004 179
Figure 3. Airborne measurements of the evolution of
surface wave directional spectra measured with the
NASA Airborne Terrain Mapper (ATM) on board the
Such coverage provided by airborne measurements
of the ocean surface is indispensable in resolving the
spatial patterns and temporal evolution of processes
that occur on length and time scales shorter than can be measured by other means, whether in situ or remote. (Research supported by NSF.)
NSF/NCAR C- 130 aircraft in the Gulf of Tehuantepec Experiment, off the coast of Mexico in February 2004.
Airborne Measurements of Surface Wave Directional Spectra
borne expendable conductivity-tempera-
ture-depth profilers) were concurrently
mapped with atmospheric structure us-
ing GPS sondes to provide three-dimen-
sional, gridded snapshots in and above
the warm pool centered at 10°N and
95°W (Figure 4). Sequential snapshots
from repeated flights delineated the evo-
lution of the spatial structure in both the
atmosphere and the ocean, which was
then placed in context with the time se-
ries collected by the RN Ron Brown and
the TAO (Tropical Atmosphere Ocean)
mooring arrays. Such synoptic data have
improved understanding of ocean-atmo-
sphere coupling over regional scales for
both light and strong wind conditions.
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE FOR
OCEANOGRAPHIC AIRCRAFT
RESEARCH
In recognition of the increasing im-
portance and value of aircraft as obser-
vational platforms in oceanographic
research, UNOLS established SCOAR
in late 2002. SCOAR held its inau-
gural meeting in February 2003 with
seven charter members attending, along
with the program managers from NSF,
NOAA, the Office of Naval Research
(ONR), and the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) who
oversee research aircraft operations
within those agencies. SCOAR aims to
establish procedures for research aircraft
that follow the present UNOLS practices
for research-vessel use, with the goal of
making it understandable, easy, and thus
desirable for ocean scientists to make
greater use of research aircraft. To be
consistent with the operation of its ships,
this will require UNOLS to designate
appropriate research-aircraft-operating
organizations to be National Oceano-
graphic Aircraft Facilities (NOAFs—sim-
180 Oceanography I Vo1.17, No.4, Dec. 2004
50
345
340
335
Theta E (°K)
2 s"1
•■■-.
a. 0
15
10
Temperature (°C)
..-----
-i- -- ..-- .-._ .----- ..--
=_ Z---- V
•.„•_=_- :1--"- t-- .._. ....."..."-- '..."....---r.........
1 -- - .--- 1
.--- ..--- ---"- -i.... '----- .---- ..--:
Figure 4. Three-dimensional depiction of atmospheric and oceanographic data acquired during the EPIC field program from a NOAA P-
3 research aircraft on September 16, 2001. The upper panel shows atmospheric equivalent potential temperatures in color superposed
on vector winds from GPS sondes in the lowest 2000 m of the atmosphere. Oceanic mixed-layer depth, at 2-m intervals, is depicted as
the black contours from AXCPs and AXCTDs relative to the lower panel showing temperatures superposed on vector current profiles in
the upper 200 m from AXCPs. (Figure courtesy L. Shay, University of Miami.) (Research supported by NSF and NOAA.)
Oceanoyraphy I Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004 181
BOX 1. FOUR PRINCIPAL ACTIVITIES
AND GOALS FOR SCOAR
• SCOAR will provide recommenda-
tions and advice to the operators
and supporting funding agencies
of the UNOLS-designated National
Oceanographic Aircraft Facilities
regarding operations, sensor de-
velopment, fleet composition, fleet
utilization, and data services as ap-
propriate
• SCOAR will provide the ocean sci-
ences user community with in-
formation and advice concerning
research aircraft facilities, including
experiment design, facility usage,
scheduling, and platform and in-
strumentation capabilities
• SCOAR will promote collaborations
and cooperation among facility op-
erators, funding agencies, and the
scientific community to improve the
availability, capabilities, and quality
of aircraft facilities supporting the
ocean sciences
• By promoting collaboration among
the ocean sciences, atmospheric sci-
ences, and other science communi-
ties using aircraft in support of their
research, SCOAR will work to im-
prove utilization and capabilities for
all participating communities
ilar to institutions that operate one or
more UNOLS ships). These will typically
be university or not-for-profit organiza-
tions in the UNOLS style. UNOLS has
designated the Center for Interdisciplin-
ary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies at
the Naval Postgraduate School as the first
NOAF. UNOLS also will institute ap-
plication procedures for NOAF aircraft
and will assist in making the application
procedures for other nationally avail-
able research aircraft more widely known
and thereby easier. The SCOAR web site
(www.unols.org/committees/scoar) now
serves as a first stop for ocean scientists
interested in obtaining aircraft facilities
for their research. It presently lists and
has links to most federally operated re-
search aircraft platforms. On-line appli-
cation forms for the CIRPAS aircraft and
connections to other aircraft-operating
agencies are provided there.
The establishment of SCOAR was
motivated in part by the recognition that
the nation currently supports a sizeable
number of research aircraft operated
by a range of agencies, universities, and
public entities. The federal fleet includes
some 40 aircraft operated by or for NSF,
ONR, NASA, NOAA, NRL (Naval Re-
search Laboratory), DOE (Department
of Energy), FAA (Federal Aviation Ad-
ministration), and the USCG (U.S. Coast
Guard). Most of these aircraft are used
for specialized research and develop-
ment, but several are available for oce-
anic and atmospheric research. A federal
committee, the Interagency Coordinat-
ing Committee for Airborne Geosciences
Research and Applications (ICCAGRA),
is charged with facilitating interagency
cooperation and being a resource to
senior-level management on airborne
182 Oceanography I Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004
geosciences issues, but prior to SCOAR
there had been no coordinating body to
assist users with the application proce-
dures for this ensemble of aircraft plat-
forms. The university research aircraft
fleet is smaller; however, information
about these aircraft and how a potential
user might gain access to them has been
neither centralized nor uniform across
institutions. Thus, SCOAR's involvement
in gathering information about aircraft
and measurement systems, making this
information available to users, and fa-
cilitating access to these assets is a sig-
nificant aspect of its mission. The four
principal activities and goals for SCOAR
are summarized in Box 1.
SCOAR has established a standard list
of instruments that will be desirable on
each UNOLS aircraft. Specialized sensor/
data packages should be accommodated
as well, depending upon the specific mis-
sion. Box 2 presents the Standard Instru-
mentation List, which will evolve as UN-
OLS and SCOAR gain experience with
the needs of the user community.
SCOAR members are scientists fa-
miliar with research aircraft use. Pres-
ent committee members are John Bane
(University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, physical oceanographer, SCOAR
Chair), Charles Flagg (State University
of New York at Stony Brook, physical
oceanographer), Ken Melville (Scripps
Institution of Oceanography, physical
oceanographer), Dan Riemer (University
BOX 2. STANDARD INSTRUMENTATION LIST FOR UNOLS AIRCRAFT
Aircraft Flight Parameters
• Position and time
- GPS — WAAS and/or differential
- Inertial navigation system (some aircraft)
• Attitude, pressure altitude, rate of climb, heading, true air
speed, ground speed and track
• Distance above surface (radar or laser altimeter)
Flight Level Atmospheric Parameters
Temperature
• Pressure
• Humidity
• Wind speed and direction (horizontal, vertical)
• Atmospheric turbulence
• Liquid water
Remote Sensing
• Solar radiation
• Sea surface temperature
• Visible imaging, digital video, frame grabbing
Deployable Sensors
• Dropwindsondes
• AXBT, AXCTD, AXCP, AXKT, sonobuoys
• Surface drifters and floats
Instrumentation Integration Facility
• Downward looking port
• Data and power bus, including time and/or position stamp
of Miami-RSMAS, atmospheric chem-
ist), Bob Bluth (Naval Postgraduate
School, CIRPAS director and ex-officio
SCOAR member), Haflidi Jonsson (Na-
val Postgraduate School, CIRPAS senior
scientist and ex-officio SCOAR member),
and John Seinfeld (California Institute
of Technology, chemical engineer and
ex-officio SCOAR member). Committee
members will typically be ocean scien-
tists, but those from allied fields such as marine meteorology and terrestrial envi-
ronmental studies will be welcomed.
THE CENTER FOR
INTERDISCIPLINARY REMOTELY
PILOTED AIRCRAFT STUDIES
In 1996, ONR established CIRPAS as a
research center at the Naval Postgraduate
School, and it became the first UNOLS
NOAF in 2003. CIRPAS, based at the
Marina Municipal Airport in Marina,
California (just north of Monterey),
serves the scientific community by pro-
viding measurements using an array of
airborne and ground-based meteorologi-
cal, oceanographic, and remote sensors.
These measurements are supported by a
ground-based calibration facility. Data
collected by the CIRPAS airborne plat-forms are reduced at the Monterey facil-
ity and provided to the user as coherent
data sets. CIRPAS conducts payload in-
tegration, reviews flight safety issues, and
provides logistical planning and support
as a part of its research and test projects
around the world.
CIRPAS provides unique flight opera-
tion and scientific measurement services
by:
• Providing access to manned aircraft,
unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs),
scientific instruments, and support
equipment to spare users the cost of
ownership, guaranteeing equal access
by all interested parties on a first-
come, first-served basis
• Instrumenting and operating air-
craft to meet the requirements of a
variety of individual research and
test programs
• Developing new instrumentation to
meet increasing challenges for im-
provements in meteorological and
oceanographic measurements
• Calibrating, maintaining, and operat-
ing the facility's airborne instruments
Oceanography I Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004 183
in accordance with individual mission
specifications
• Integrating auxiliary payloads, as re-
quired, and handling flight safety and
logistics tasks, allowing the user to
concentrate on specific mission goals
CIRPAS presently operates three piloted
and several remotely piloted aircraft
for scientific and defense research. The
platform that has been most widely
used in oceanographic projects is the
UV-18A Twin Otter (Figure 5). This pi-
loted, twin-turboprop Short Takeoff and
Landing (STOL) aircraft can cruise at
very low speeds for long durations over
the ocean. Several of the external, nose-
mounted sensors on the CIRPAS single-
engine Pelican-2 aircraft are shown in
Figure 6. CIRPAS also can provide a wide
variety of oceanographic and atmo-
spheric airborne sensors to the research
community. This includes off-the-shelf
instrumentation as well as one-of-a-kind
custom-built packages. The CIRPAS ba-
sic instrumentation package follows the
UNOLS-NOAF standard instrument list
given in Box 2. Box 3 lists the option-
ally available instruments for CIRPAS
aircraft. To obtain more information on
this facility, visit the CIRPAS web site
(web.nps.navy.mil/%7Ecirpas/).
THE FUTURE
Rapid developments in ocean-observ-
ing systems and research observatories
within the nation's coastal oceans and in
international deep-ocean regions have
prompted SCOAR to consider the util-
ity of airborne observations within these
activities. The committee believes that
aircraft will be useful in three principal
ways: (1) routine observations in areas
that do not have fixed, in situ instru-
mentation (e.g., to obtain data for the
initialization or verification of oceanic
and atmospheric models), (2) observa-
tions surrounding observatory sites or
moorings to provide more complete,
three-dimensional views of the environ-
ment, and (3) intense observations for
specific, short-term events such as algal
blooms, high-runoff episodes, atmo-
spheric storms, Gulf Stream intrusions,
and ocean-eddy events.
Long-range aircraft operated by agen-
cies such as NOAA, NCAR, NASA, and
NRL are presently available for deep-
ocean observatory needs far from a land
base. To best serve the nation's growing
coastal observing systems and obser-
vatories, SCOAR foresees the need for
regional research aircraft centers. These
centers would operate shorter-range air-
craft, such as the Twin Otter and smaller,
slow, good-visibility, single- or twin-en-
gine aircraft over coastal and inshore wa-
ters. CIRPAS is already filling this role on
the U.S. West Coast. A strong case can be
made for centers on the U.S. East Coast,
in Alaska, on the Gulf of Mexico coast,
and in Hawaii to enhance coastal observ-
ing systems that are either operating or
Figure 5. The UV-18A Twin Otter turboprop aircraft
operated by the Center for Interdisciplinary Re-
motely-Piloted Aircraft Studies for oceanographic
and meteorological research. Important operational
characteristics of this aircraft include: Maximum
endurance of 8 hrs (extended further during ferry
operations). maximum altitude of 25,000 ft, 70-160
knots operational speed range, 200 amps of payload
power (DC and AC combined), wing span of 65 ft,
gross takeoff weight of 13,500 lbs, and an approxi-
mate 6,000 lbs useful load.
184 Oceanography I Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004
CIRPAS Pelican 2
Temperature and Relative ti
Figure 6. Instruments mounted on the nose of the CIRPAS Pelican-2 single-engine aircraft. These are
used in measuring atmospheric variables immediately above the ocean in air-sea interaction stud-
ies. The aircraft also supports remote sensing instruments that view the upper ocean and the ocean's
surface from side or bottom mounted ports, and it has an expendable instrument capability (launch
chutes and data reception system) for AXBTs, AXCTDs, current-following floats, and others.
planned in those regions.
To help plan for new research aircraft
resources for the longer term, SCOAR
and ICCAGRA intend to send an open
letter to the geosciences research com-
munity requesting input on anticipated
needs as well as new platform and in-
strumentation ideas. A community-wide
workshop in these areas is envisioned.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank the UNOLS agencies, primar-
ily the Office of Naval Research, for
their support of SCOAR. Sara Haines
(University of North Carolina) prepared
some of the graphics. Constructive com-
ments on an earlier draft of the manu-
script were kindly provided by Paul Bis-
sett (Florida Environmental Research
Institute) and Lynn "Nick" Shay (Uni-
versity of Miami). Ea
BOX 3. OPTIONAL INSTRUMENTATION AVAILABLE FOR CIRPAS AIRCRAFT
• Passive cavity aerosol spectrometer probe
• Forward scatter spectrometer probe
• Cloud aerosol precipitation spectrometer
• Aerodynamic particle sizer
• Cloud imaging probe
• Precipitation imaging probe
• Three-wavelength nephelometer
• Three-wavelength soot photometer
• Stereo cloud imaging probe
• 95 GHz cloud radar
• Scanning Doppler wind LIDAR
• Stabilized platform for radiometric measurements
• Cloud condensation nuclei counter
Aerosol mass spectrometer
• Twin differential mobility analyzer
• Phased Doppler cloud droplet spectrometer
• MOUDI size discriminating aerosol collection system
• Radome flow angle/INS-GPS turbulence system
Oceanography Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004 185
MEETING REPORT
Eighth International Conference on Paleoceanography
BY FRANCIS E. GROUSSET, PEGGY DELANEY, HARRY ELDERFIELD, KAY-CHRISTIAN EMEIS,
GERALD HAUG, LARRY C. PETERSON, THOMAS STOCKER, AND PINXIAN WANG
Every three years since 1983, the pale-
oceanographic community comes to-
gether to share new discoveries and cele-
brate their discipline at the International
Conference on Paleoceanography (ICP).
The host country and meeting location
are different each time, and the next
venue is selected by community vote at
the end of each conference. In recogni-
tion of the internationally renowned ef-
forts of the French community in both
the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program
(IODP) and International Marine Global
Changes (IMAGES) coring programs,
France was selected at the end of ICP-7
in Sapporo (Japan) to be the organizer of
the 2004 ICP-8.
ICP-8 took place in Biarritz, France,
from September 5 to September 10,
2004, in the conference center of the lo-
cal landmark casino. The Environnments
et Paleoenvironnement Oceanique
(EPOC) group of University Bordeaux I
acted as the local organizing committee.
A total of 700 scientists attended from 34
different countries—including 250 stu-
dents. The overall conference theme was
"An Ocean View of Global Change."
Scientific topics addressed during
ICP-8 provided attendees with informa-
tion about the latest discoveries and the
current state of knowledge in paleocean-
ography. Meeting talks and discussions
identified emerging new areas of knowl-
edge and raised questions about unre-
solved scientific problems. The Scientific
Committee selected five themes covering
two time scales: (1) the Mesozoic (from
248 to 65 million years ago [Ma]) and
Cenozoic (from 65 Ma to the present)
oceans, but with an emphasis on (2)
oceanographic questions concerning the
more modern oceans of the Holocene
(the last 10,000 years) and the most re-
cent glacial. Two main scientific fields
were considered: changes in the chemis-
try of the ocean (e.g., the carbonate and
silica systems of the Pleistocene [1.8 Ma
to 10,000 years ago] ocean and biogeo-
chemical cycles) and changes in climate
(e.g., high-frequency climate variability
and interhemispheric ocean-continent-
climate links).
The main highlights and outcomes
that emerged from the thirty-five invited
talks and the five hundred posters are
summarized below. To obtain a copy of
the detailed agenda, full abstracts, and a
list of invited speakers and their reported
results and hypotheses, go to the ICP-8
web site: www.icp8.cnrs.fr.
Francis E. Grousset (fgrousset@epoc.
u-bordeaux1fr), ICP-8 Convener, is Senior
Researcher, University Bordeaux I, France.
Peggy Delaney is Professor of Ocean Sci-
ences, Ocean Sciences Department, Univer-
sity of California, Santa Cruz, United States
of America. Harry Elderfield is Professor,
Department of Earth Sciences, University of
Cambridge, United Kingdom. Kay-Chris-
tian Emeis is Professor, Institut fur Ostsee-
forschung Warnemiinde, Germany. Gerald
Haug is Section Head, Climate Dynamics
and Sediments, Geoforschungszentrum
Potsdam (GFZ) and Professor, University of
Potstdam, Germany. Larry C. Peterson is
Professor, Marine Geology and Geophysics,
University of Miami, Florida, United States
of America. Thomas Stocker is Professor
of Climate and Environmental Physics and
Co-Director, Physics Institute, University of
Bern, Switzerland. Pinxian Wang is Profes-
sor, Department of Marine Geology and
Geophysics, Tongji University, Shanghai,
People's Republic of China.
186 Oceanoyraply I Vol.17, No.4, Dec. 2004